Memories
by ivebeenstumped
Summary: It's been three months since the Ponds left the Doctor and he still hasn't recovered. This TARDIS decides to take his misery into her own, well... control panels?


The Doctor walked aimlessly around the control panels of the TARDIS. It had been three months since his two best friends in the universe, Amy and Rory, had been taken by one of the most feared monsters, the weeping angles. The Doctor still missed his friends every day and hadn't left the TARDIS in all that time. He had explored most of the TARDIS in that time and had found rooms that he didn't even know about. But the Doctor could tell that it was getting annoyed with him sulking every day.

One day the TARDIS was purposelessly floating in space, the Doctor barely even noticing where he was. Suddenly the control panels started beeping and loud and shrill alarms went off everywhere. The Doctor jumped up and checked the panels, nothing seemed to be wrong, but continuous sounds were coming from them all. He tried moving some of the levers and tried pressing some of the buttons, but nothing worked to ease the noise. Suddenly the TARDIS lurched and crashed on a hard surface; the Doctor was thrown to the floor and yelled in pain as his shoulder was crushed beneath him. The noises seemed to stop and all of the lights in the room turned off, plunging him into darkness. The Doctor lifted himself off of the floor while cradling his hurt shoulder. He reached the panels and knew that he would have to make repairs from the outside of the ship if he ever wanted to leave where ever he had crashed.

"You've done this to me on purpose haven't you," he shouted up to the TARDIS, "well I don't care, I don't have to leave if I don't want to. I can stay here forever." The Doctor knew that she would try to get him out, so he braced himself for anything that would come from her, but nothing happened. The Doctor, itching for confrontation he hadn't had in months, was frustrated.

"Fine then! If you really want me to go I'll go," said the doctor. He turned to the general direction of the door as he could not see where he was going and walked until he found a solid wall. He moved around with his hands trailing on the wall until he found the door handle. He yanked at the door and it opened with a screech, as it hadn't been moved in months. He stepped out and looked around, he had landed in a foggy marsh, and they seemed to be buried in mud. The Doctor swore and kicked the TARDIS, _this will take ages to get out of, _he thought.

"Hello?" called a voice from deep in the fog. The Doctor looked up and saw nothing but fog and muddy swamp. "Hello?" it called again. The voice was young sounding, the voice of a child.

"Who's there?" asked the Doctor, he stood alert, "I won't hurt you." Two small figures materialised out of the fog, two children both with purple skin.

"Are you the Doctor?" asked one of the children, a young boy. He timidly stepped towards the Doctor.

"Yes," said the Doctor in response, "but how do you know my name?"

"We we're told you were coming," said the other child, a girl. She had long blue hair that flowed across her purple skin.

"Yeah," said the boy, "she told us, she had a lovely voice."

"She? What was her name?" asked the Doctor.

"I think it was Tardy or something."

The Doctor frowned. _Of course, _he thought, _it had to be her._

"Anyway, my name is Mopper," said the boy, "and this is Periwink." He gestured to the girl, who was playing with the hem of her tattered shirt.

"We're meant to show you the cave," said Periwink, offering her hand out. The Doctor took it and the children led him into the thick fog.

The group soon came across a small opening between two large boulders. Mopper ran through the small gap in the rock with no problem but the Doctor was hesitant at the size of the gap.

"Come on," said Periwink, tugging at the Doctor's hand, "you'll fit." Periwink, still holding the Dcotor hand, pulled him easily through the gap. Somehow, it expanded to let the Doctor through.

Inside was a dark cavern that stretched on until nothing could be seen. The Doctor stretched out his hand to touch the wall, it was cold and wet. His hand seemed to had a faint yellow tinge to it as he pulled it away.

"Well come on then," said Mopper, he gestured for the Doctor and Periwink to follow him deeper into the cavern.

Mopper led them through deeper into the cavern and as the passed a sharp bend the Doctor spotted a faint light at the end of the tunnel. It looked a little like it was shimmering, so the doctor guessed that it wasn't the exit.

"What is that?" asked the Doctor.

"It's what she wanted us to show you," said Periwink. They reached the light and Periwink tugged the Doctor into the source. The entire space was covered in different coloured glowing lights. A small pool of water that reflected the lights was situated in the middle of the space. The Doctor, now being able to see everything, walked over to the wall where a group of the lights were huddled. They were all tiny bugs.

"Glowworms?" asked the Doctor, turning to the children.

"I guess you could call them that, no one really knows what they are," answered Mopper, he shrugged his shoulders.

"Some say that they collect the memories of every living thing in every universe," said Periwink, she was holding one of them, it's light illuminated all of her childlike features.

"Do you think they'd have my memories?" asked the Doctor.

"I think so," said Periwink. She picked a dark blue one off of the wall and placed it in the Doctor's palm. For a moment, all sound in the cave was silenced, then the Doctor saw images in his mind. Images of his past regenerations, all of his companions, the good times and the bad, when he had lost friends or gained new ones, when he saved a planet, when he couldn't, and those rare, beautiful times where everybody lived. Just this once, everybody lives.

Suddenly, the Doctor realised why the TARDIS wanted him to come here. He had done so many wonderful things in the past and she didn't want him to forget that. When the images stopped the Doctor found himself back in the cave with Mopper and Periwink, with the blue bug in his palm. It's colour seemed to have slightly dimmed.

"They do that," said Periwink as she took the bug from his palm and placed it back on the wall. It immediately gained it luminance back.

"Thank you for this," said the Doctor, "I need to get back to my ship though. We crashed and it needs fixing." The children led the Doctor back to the TARDIS but when they got there the Doctor found that it looked as good as new and was sitting on the swamp bank, ready to go. The Doctor was not surprised. The TARDIS had many ways of fixing herself up.

The Doctor said goodbye to Mopper and Periwink, thanking them, and set off with the TARDIS making it's familiar whirring sound. He didn't know where he was headed, but he knew he was going somewhere.


End file.
